Unwanted Advice
by SiriusMarauderFan
Summary: Her decision to leave behind the man she loves still raw, Minerva becomes angry when she learns of her friend's engagement. one shot


**Author's Note:** Written for…

Battlefield Wars. _Team/Position:_ After All This Time – Always, Front Line Cadet #2. _Mandatory Character:_ Minerva McGonagall. _Assisting Character:_ Eileen Prince. _Prompts:_ teacher, guilty, emerald, happiness, "I've never hated someone as much as I hate you right now."

 **Unwanted Advice**

"I'm engaged."

Minerva looked up from the auror reports she was inspecting to stare at her officemate. "I beg your pardon?"

"Engaged," Eileen repeated, on the verge of giggling as she retrieved a small ring from her desk drawer and flaunted it. "It just happened over the weekend!"

She wasn't sure what to say. She supposed 'congratulations' might've been proper in that sort of situation, but the words wouldn't come. She couldn't take her eyes off the ring.

"Say something, Minerva!" Eileen urged.

"Who?" she asked dumbly. She'd been working alongside Eileen for nearly two years and in that time she'd never mentioned a boyfriend.

"Oh, he's this sweet boy I've been talking to. He works in a factory in Cokeworth. His name's Tobias Snape."

"Factory … he's a muggle?"

Eileen nodded enthusiastically, now seemingly unable to take her own eyes off her ring. It might've been sweet if her apparent happiness wasn't turning Minerva's stomach.

"You can't marry him." Eileen's dark eyes snapped up to meet hers instantly. Her gaze was piercing, but Minerva didn't waver. "You'll regret it."

"What is there to regret? Tobias and I are in love."

Minerva thought to her own parents: a talented but unhappy witch and a distrusting Presbyterian minister. There was love in family, yes, but love did not make for a happy home.

"What about the International Statute of Secrecy? You can't tell him that you're a witch or you'll lose your job. And he won't look at you the same once you do."

"Tobias won't care what I am," the silly girl insisted. "And I won't be staying here for long anyway. I want to be there to cook Tobias dinner when he gets home from the factory every night, and we're going to have a family eventually."

"You're being foolish," Minerva said roughly. She pushed away from her desk and began pacing the small area of clear floor in their cramped office. "You have thought anything through yet. Where will you live? What will your family say?"

"Tobias already has a house in Cokeworth. We're having dinner with my parents tonight to tell them. If they don't approve … well, that'll be that."

"You'll just stop speaking to them?"

"I won't tolerate people speaking ill of the man I love," she said threateningly, stopping Minerva in her tracks.

The women may not have been friends for long – they had been in separate houses with infatuations in different sports back at school – but since coming to the Ministry, they had become close.

There were warning bells in Minerva's head telling her to tread softly. Still, images flashed unwelcomingly in her mind: the look of uncertainty in her father's eye whenever he caught her doing magic; her mother's envy; Dougal, the muggle she came so close to giving it all up for…

"I'm not trying to hurt you, Eileen. I promise. I just don't want you to regret this later on, when you're forced to hide what you are from the people you love." She took a shaky breath. "Think of your children."

Eileen screamed, clearing her own desk of the stack of reports in one swift motion. She stood up, snatching her wand from its holder, and stomped over to the door. She turned back momentarily to glare at Minerva.

"I thought you were my _friend_ ," she spat.

"Eileen, please-"

"No. I'm going to tell Urquart I resign, and then I'm going to be with Tobias and I'll tell him what I am and we'll be happy. You'll see."

"Don't do this."

"Why? Just because Minerva McGonagall can't be happy, no one else can?" It was far from the truth, but it pained Minerva just the same. She kept her mouth shut as Eileen finished her rant. "I've never hated someone as much as I hate you right now."

Minerva felt guilty the moment the door slammed shut behind her former friend. She wanted to run after her and apologize, but she didn't think she could manage those words. She had only been trying to help, after all. She'd been trying to keep Eileen from the same regrets that plagued her mother still, which Minerva herself no doubt would have felt had she gone through with marrying Dougal.

She returned to her desk, pushing aside the reports and pulling a fresh piece of parchment and her favorite emerald quill from a drawer. She quickly crafted a letter to Hogwarts, asking if there was a position available in the Transfiguration department.

The return letter came just shy of two hours later, signed from her old teacher. Minerva smiled at Dumbledore's neat signature and let out a deep sigh as she began writing up her resignation. Perhaps a change of scenery would help.

:-:

The announcement ran in the Prophet three months later on Minerva's first day as a teaching assistant. She would remember the day for years to come: seated at the faculty table between two of her old professors, trying to finish her eggs and sausage while reading to paper to distract her nerves.

The twenty-word announcement was so small, sandwiched between an interview with the Minister and an obituary of Gervaise Ollivander, that Minerva almost missed it.

' _Eileen Prince, daughter of Cassius and Nerine Prince, wed muggle Tobias Snape in a private ceremony in Cokeworth on Sunday evening.'_

It was jarring to see it there. She'd expected something would happen, it wouldn't go through. She almost wished she hadn't seen it at all, because now all she could imagine was her own name in the paper next to Dougal's.

"Are you alright, Minerva?" Albus asked, placing a cool hand on hers.

"Oh, yes," she lied quickly, steeling her features. She neatly folded the newspaper and placed it off to the side. "I couldn't be better."

And it occurred to her as she sat there forcing down bites of egg and sausage and willing herself to remain calm, that in the end she was the one regretting her decisions.


End file.
